Thoughts on ethnic and international conflicts and the democratic ideal.

Sunday, April 07, 2013

The North Korean game

Lately there has been a lot of noise about North Korea. Here some thoughts of my own:
- the military exercises of the US with South Korea are still going on. It is expected that North Korea will stop its threats once the exercises are over.
- the exercises are close to the North Korean border and simulate an invasion into North Korea.
- North Korea knows it is no match for the US. So it has long ago adopted the strategy of the unpredictable madman. This is less strange than it may seem when one considers that NATO always held the option open to react with nuclear bombs if the Warsaw Pact would attack with conventional weapons.
- The US has this exercise brought in some extraordinary weapons - including B2's, some big ships and a new missile shield. So North Korea had a lot to become exited about.
- The US wants to provoke North Korea.
- The leaders of both North Korea and China are new. It may be that Obama is trying them out.
- It looks like the North Korean leader hasn't found the right tune yet. Obama is happy to provoke him even more as it fits his schedule to make North Korea look bad.
- The US is putting heavy pressure in China to get it put more pressure on North Korea and China is definitely not happy with all this American military noise in its neighborhood. It looks like China's new leader is more open to America's concerns as his predecessor. However, there is a risk that too much pressure may backfire.
- There is a risk that Kim Jong-un may overplay his hand and cause a conflict. However, what frightens me most is the possibility that Obama may deliberately be leading us to yet another war. He has already started two regime change wars (Libya and Syria).
- It is no coincidence that Kerry's Asia tour coincides with the military exercise. It must have been a deliberate plan to provoke Kim and then to use his reactions to pressure the Asians to fall in line with the Americans.

About this blog

What makes people support a leader or a government and what makes them associate themselves with a country? These core issues in international relations fascinate me and I am looking for work studying those issues. I studied psychology and anthropology.